{"title":"On Using Time Without Clocks via Zigzag Causality","authors":"Asa Dan, R. Manohar, Y. Moses","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087839","url":null,"abstract":"Even in the absence of clocks, time bounds on the duration of actions enable the use of time for distributed coordination. This paper initiates an investigation of coordination in such a setting. A new communication structure called a zigzag pattern is introduced, and is shown to guarantee bounds on the relative timing of events in this clockless model. Indeed, zigzag patterns are shown to be necessary and sufficient for establishing that events occur in a manner that satisfies prescribed bounds. We capture when a process can know that an appropriate zigzag pattern exists, and use this to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for timed coordination of events using a full-information protocol in the clockless model.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129483113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Multiparty Communication Complexity of Testing Triangle-Freeness","authors":"O. Fischer, Shay Gershtein, R. Oshman","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087821","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we initiate the study of property testing in multi-party communication complexity, focusing on testing triangle-freeness in graphs. We consider the coordinator model, where we have k players receiving private inputs, and a coordinator who receives no input; the coordinator can communicate with all the players, but the players cannot communicate with each other. In this model, we ask: if an input graph is divided between the players, with each player receiving some of the edges, how many bits do the players and the coordinator need to exchange to determine if the graph is triangle-free, or far from triangle-free? For general communication protocols, we show that ~O(k(nd)1/4+k2) bits are sufficient to test triangle-freeness in graphs of size n with average degree d. For simultaneous protocols, where there is only one communication round, we give a protocol using ~O(k √n) bits when d = O(√n) and ~O(k (nd)1/3) when d = Ω(√n). We show that for average degree d = O(1), our simultaneous protocol is asymptotically optimal up to logarithmic factors. For higher degrees, we are not able to give lower bounds on testing triangle-freeness, but we give evidence that the problem is hard by showing that finding an edge that participates in a triangle is hard, even when promised that the graph is far from triangle-free.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129516599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
K. Censor-Hillel, Bernhard Haeupler, D. E. Hershkowitz, Goran Zuzic
{"title":"Broadcasting in Noisy Radio Networks","authors":"K. Censor-Hillel, Bernhard Haeupler, D. E. Hershkowitz, Goran Zuzic","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087808","url":null,"abstract":"The widely-studied radio network model [Chlamtac and Kutten, 1985] is a graph-based description that captures the inherent impact of collisions in wireless communication. In this model, the strong assumption is made that node v receives a message from a neighbor if and only if exactly one of its neighbors broadcasts. We relax this assumption by introducing a new noisy radio network model in which random faults occur at senders or receivers. Specifically, for a constant noise parameter p ∈ [0,1), either every sender has probability p of transmitting noise or every receiver of a single transmission in its neighborhood has probability p of receiving noise. We first study single-message broadcast algorithms in noisy radio networks and show that the Decay algorithm [Bar-Yehuda et al., 1992] remains robust in the noisy model while the diameter-linear algorithm of Gasieniec et al., 2007 does not. We give a modified version of the algorithm of Gasieniec et al., 2007 that is robust to sender and receiver faults, and extend both this modified algorithm and the Decay algorithm to robust multi-message broadcast algorithms, broadcasting Ω(1/log n log log n) and Ω(1/log n) messages per round, respectively. We next investigate the extent to which (network) coding improves throughput in noisy radio networks. In particular, we study the coding cap -- the ratio of the throughput of coding to that of routing -- in noisy radio networks. We address the previously perplexing result of Alon et al. 2014 that worst case coding throughput is no better than worst case routing throughput up to constants: we show that the worst case throughput performance of coding is, in fact, superior to that of routing -- by a Θ(log(n)) gap -- provided receiver faults are introduced. However, we show that sender faults have little effect on throughput. In particular, we show that any coding or routing scheme for the noiseless setting can be transformed to be robust to sender faults with only a constant throughput overhead. These transformations imply that the results of Alon et al., 2014 carry over to noisy radio networks with sender faults as well. As a result, if sender faults are introduced then there exist topologies for which there is a Θ(log log n) gap, but the worst case throughput across all topologies is Θ(1/log n) for both coding and routing.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"193 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127167021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Space Complexity of Fault-Tolerant Register Emulations","authors":"G. Chockler, A. Spiegelman","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087824","url":null,"abstract":"Driven by the rising popularity of cloud storage, the costs associated with implementing reliable storage services from a collection of fault-prone servers have recently become an actively studied question. The well-known ABD result shows that an f-tolerant register can be emulated using a collection of 2f+1 fault-prone servers each storing a single read-modify-write object, which is known to be optimal. In this paper we generalize this bound: we investigate the inherent space complexity of emulating reliable multi-writer registers as a function of the type of the base objects exposed by the underlying servers, the number of writers to the emulated register, the number of available servers, and the failure threshold. We establish a sharp separation between registers, and both max-registers (the base object type assumed by ABD) and CAS in terms of the resources (i.e., the number of base objects of the respective types) required to support the emulation; we show that no such separation exists between max-registers and CAS. Our main technical contribution is lower and upper bounds on the resources required in case the underlying base objects are fault-prone read/write registers. We show that the number of required registers is directly proportional to the number of writers and inversely proportional to the number of servers.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131663812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Distributed Learning Dynamics in Social Groups","authors":"L. E. Celis, P. Krafft, Nisheeth K. Vishnoi","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087820","url":null,"abstract":"We study a distributed learning process observed in human groups and other social animals. This learning process appears in settings in which each individual in a group is trying to decide over time, in a distributed manner, which option to select among a shared set of options. Specifically, we consider a stochastic dynamics in a group in which every individual selects an option in the following two-step process: (1) select a random individual and observe the option that individual chose in the previous time step, and (2) adopt that option if its stochastic quality was good at that time step. Various instantiations of such distributed learning appear in nature, and have also been studied in the social science literature. From the perspective of an individual, an attractive feature of this learning process is that it is a simple heuristic that requires extremely limited computational capacities. But what does it mean for the group -- could such a simple, distributed and essentially memoryless process lead the group as a whole to perform optimally? We show that the answer to this question is yes -- this distributed learning is highly effective at identifying the best option and is close to optimal for the group overall. Our analysis also gives quantitative bounds that show fast convergence of these stochastic dynamics. We prove our result by first defining a (stochastic) infinite population version of these distributed learning dynamics and then combining its strong convergence properties along with its relation to the finite population dynamics. Prior to our work the only theoretical work related to such learning dynamics has been either in deterministic special cases or in the asymptotic setting. Finally, we observe that our infinite population dynamics is a stochastic variant of the classic multiplicative weights update (MWU) method. Consequently, we arrive at the following interesting converse: the learning dynamics on a finite population considered here can be viewed as a novel distributed and low-memory implementation of the classic MWU method.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127927674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communication Primitives in Cognitive Radio Networks","authors":"Seth Gilbert, F. Kuhn, Chaodong Zheng","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087805","url":null,"abstract":"Cognitive radio networks are a new type of multi-channel wireless network in which different nodes can have access to different sets of channels. By providing multiple channels, they improve the efficiency and reliability of wireless communication. However, the heterogeneous nature of cognitive radio networks also brings new challenges to the design and analysis of distributed algorithms. In this paper, we focus on two fundamental problems in cognitive radio networks: neighbor discovery, and global broadcast. We consider a network containing n nodes, each of which has access to c channels. We assume the network has diameter D, and each pair of neighbors have at least k≥1, and at most kmax≤c, shared channels. We also assume each node has at most Δ neighbors. For the neighbor discovery problem, we design a randomized algorithm CSeek which has time complexity Õ( (c2/k) + (kmax/k)*Δ ). CSeek is flexible and robust, which allows us to use it as a generic \"filter\" to find \"well-connected\" neighbors with an even shorter running time. We then move on to the global broadcast problem, and propose CGCast, a randomized algorithm which takes Õ( (c2/k) + (kmax/k)*Δ + D*Δ) time. CGCast uses CSeek to achieve communication among neighbors, and uses edge coloring to establish an efficient schedule for fast message dissemination. Towards the end of the paper, we give lower bounds for solving the two problems. These lower bounds demonstrate that in many situations, CSeek and CGCast are near optimal.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"14 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130749191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Simple Deterministic Distributed MST Algorithm, with Near-Optimal Time and Message Complexities","authors":"Michael Elkin","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087823","url":null,"abstract":"Distributed minimum spanning tree (MST) problem is one of the most central and fundamental problems in distributed graph algorithms. Kutten and Peleg [KP98] devised an algorithm with running time O(D + √n . log* n), where D is the hop-diameter of the input n-vertex m-edge graph, and with message complexity O(m + n3/2). Peleg and Rubinovich [PR99] showed that the running time of the algorithm of [KP98] is essentially tight, and asked if one can achieve near-optimal running time together with near-optimal message complexity. In a recent breakthrough, Pandurangan et al. [PRS16] answered this question in the affirmative, and devised a randomized algorithm with time Õ(D+ √n) and message complexity Õ(m). They asked if such a simultaneous time- and message-optimality can be achieved by a deterministic algorithm. In this paper, building upon the work of [PRS16], we answer this question in the affirmative, and devise a deterministic algorithm that computes MST in time O((D + √n). log n), using O(m . log n + n log n . log* n) messages. The polylogarithmic factors in the time and message complexities of our algorithm are significantly smaller than the respective factors in the result of [PRS16]. Also, our algorithm and its analysis are very simple and self-contained, as opposed to rather complicated previous sublinear-time algorithms [GKP98,KP98,E04b,PRS16].","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129665333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploiting Spontaneous Transmissions for Broadcasting and Leader Election in Radio Networks","authors":"A. Czumaj, Peter Davies","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087825","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087825","url":null,"abstract":"We study two fundamental communication primitives: broadcasting and leader election in the classical model of multi-hop radio networks with unknown topology and without collision detection mechanisms. It has been known for almost 20 years that in undirected networks with n nodes and diameter D, randomized broadcasting requires Ω(D log t n/D + log2n) rounds in expectation, assuming that uninformed nodes are not allowed to communicate (until they are informed). Only very recently, Haeupler and Wajc (PODC'2016) showed that this bound can be slightly improved for the model with spontaneous transmissions, providing an O(D(log n log log n)/(log D) + logO(1)n)-time broadcasting algorithm. In this paper, we give a new and faster algorithm that completes broadcasting in O(D(log n)/(log D) + logO(1)n) time, with high probability. This yields the first optimal O(D)-time broadcasting algorithm whenever D is polynomial in n. Furthermore, our approach can be applied to design a new leader election algorithm that matches the performance of our broadcasting algorithm. Previously, all fast randomized leader election algorithms have been using broadcasting as their subroutine and their complexity have been asymptotically strictly bigger than the complexity of broadcasting. In particular, the fastest previously known randomized leader election algorithm of Ghaffari and Haeupler (SODA'2013) requires O(D log n/D min(log log n, log n/D) + logO(1)n-time with high probability. Our new algorithm requires O(D(log n)/(log D) + logO(1)n time with high probability, and it achieves the optimal O(D) time whenever D is polynomial in n.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124829122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Layered Architecture for Erasure-Coded Consistent Distributed Storage","authors":"K. Konwar, N. Prakash, N. Lynch, M. Médard","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087832","url":null,"abstract":"Motivated by emerging applications to the edge computing paradigm, we introduce a two-layer erasure-coded fault-tolerant distributed storage system offering atomic access for read and write operations. In edge computing, clients interact with an edge-layer of servers that is geographically near; the edge-layer in turn interacts with a back-end layer of servers. The edge-layer provides low latency access and temporary storage for client operations, and uses the back-end layer for persistent storage. Our algorithm, termed Layered Data Storage (LDS) algorithm, offers several features suitable for edge-computing systems, works under asynchronous message-passing environments, supports multiple readers and writers, and can tolerate f1 < n1/2 and f2 < n2/3 crash failures in the two layers having n1 and n2 servers, respectively. We use a class of erasure codes known as regenerating codes for storage of data in the back-end layer. The choice of regenerating codes, instead of popular choices like Reed-Solomon codes, not only optimizes the cost of back-end storage, but also helps in optimizing communication cost of read operations, when the value needs to be recreated all the way from the back-end. The two-layer architecture permits a modular implementation of atomicity and erasure-code protocols; the implementation of erasure-codes is mostly limited to interaction between the two layers. We prove liveness and atomicity of LDS, and also compute performance costs associated with read and write operations. In a system with n1 = Θ(n2), f1 = Θ(n1), f2 = Θ(n2), the write and read costs are respectively given by Θ(n1) and Θ(1) + n1 I(δ > 0). Here δ is a parameter closely related to the number of write operations that are concurrent with the read operation, and I(δ > 0) is 1 if δ > 0, and 0 if δ = 0. The cost of persistent storage in the back-end layer is Θ(1). The impact of temporary storage is minimally felt in a multi-object system running N independent instances of LDS, where only a small fraction of the objects undergo concurrent accesses at any point during the execution. For the multi-object system, we identify a condition on the rate of concurrent writes in the system such that the overall storage cost is dominated by that of persistent storage in the back-end layer, and is given by Θ(N).","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122234079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Brandt, J. Hirvonen, Janne H. Korhonen, Tuomo Lempiäinen, P. Östergård, Christopher Purcell, J. Rybicki, J. Suomela, P. Uznański
{"title":"LCL Problems on Grids","authors":"S. Brandt, J. Hirvonen, Janne H. Korhonen, Tuomo Lempiäinen, P. Östergård, Christopher Purcell, J. Rybicki, J. Suomela, P. Uznański","doi":"10.1145/3087801.3087833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3087801.3087833","url":null,"abstract":"LCLs or locally checkable labelling problems (e.g. maximal independent set, maximal matching, and vertex colouring) in the LOCAL model of computation are very well-understood in cycles (toroidal 1-dimensional grids): every problem has a complexity of O(1), Θ(log* n), or Θ(n), and the design of optimal algorithms can be fully automated. This work develops the complexity theory of LCL problems for toroidal 2-dimensional grids. The complexity classes are the same as in the 1-dimensional case: O(1), Θ(log* n), and Θ(n). However, given an LCL problem it is undecidable whether its complexity is Θ(log* n) or Θ(n) in 2-dimensional grids. Nevertheless, if we correctly guess that the complexity of a problem is Θ(log* n), we can completely automate the design of optimal algorithms. For any problem we can find an algorithm that is of a normal form A' o Sk, where A' is a finite function, Sk is an algorithm for finding a maximal independent set in kth power of the grid, and k is a constant. Finally, partially with the help of automated design tools, we classify the complexity of several concrete LCL problems related to colourings and orientations.","PeriodicalId":324970,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116864946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}